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Popcast: Young Thug as Vocal Stylist

By Ben Ratliff February 7, 2014 1:30 pmFebruary 7, 2014 1:30 pm

Photo

The Atlanta rapper Young Thug has a new mixtape, “Black Portland,” recorded with Bloody Jay.Credit Glen Moodie

“Black Portland,” the new mixtape by the Atlanta rapper Young Thug and Bloody Jay, is full of southern cadence, trap beats, rhymes about cars and women, and mid-oughts Lil Wayne spaciness. But it’s more full of something else: Young Thug’s voice, which goes high and low, very young and very old. It sings and growls and yelps and moans and wobbles and articulates words or leaves them half-formed.

The total plasticity of that voice — its range of sound — contains its own original information; it suggests something bigger than style or region or influence, and definitely bigger than text. Jon Caramanica wrote about “Black Portland” this week, and talked with me on the Popcast not only about Young Thug, but about the hip-hop tradition of irreducible voices, the kind that make the words of a song seem like a distant concern.